For Home a Song
by ihavenoface
Summary: The waiting game is perhaps the cruelest game of all. Oneshot, Johnlock, Smaug/Bilbo, Smauglock/Johnbo, etc.


**A/N:**

**I'm sorry I haven't been updating on my other story, "My Most Precious," lately. However, I just had to write this one!**

**None of the characters, plot, or anything of these two absolutely fantastic works belong to the lowly me. "The Hobbit" belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien, New Line Productions, Wingnut Films, and Peter Jackson. "Sherlock" belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Hartswood Films, BBC, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss.**

**This is my first Sherlock and/or Hobbit fanfiction, and my second ever fanfic, so I'm sorry if it's really bad. Please enjoy!**

Bilbo Baggins was a somewhat queer hobbit. Of course, he was a respectable one, but he lived alone in a fairly large hobbit-hole; he shared it with no one, even at his age. Other hobbits his age already had large families full of smiling hobbit-children. Not Bilbo Baggins. He was also part Took; that alone made him different from the other hobbit-folk. The Tooks were notorious for being drawn to adventures. Not respectable behavior at all. Made you late for dinner.

His first fifty or so years were uneventful. However, throughout his life, he sometimes felt like he was being controlled, almost. Like there was some unknown force causing him to think the thoughts he did, or act how he did.

When he dreamt while asleep, he sometimes saw a world of blues and whites and grays and blacks and browns. There were few or no greens at all. Tall spires rose in the air, and roads were filled with strange vehicles, like little ants. He dreamed of white rooms with glass vials, filled with colorful liquids. He dreamed of small rectangular devices that sent messages. He dreamed of a limp and a short and metal staff. He dreamed of a black thing that exploded at the tip when you pulled something and caused bloody injuries. He dreamed of a purple shirt, a human skull, and a black slab of marble. Most of all, he dreamed of a smooth and deep baritone voice. They were becoming more and more frequent, nowadays. Sometimes they permeated his daydreams or thoughts. They always disappeared quickly, though, leaving a slight buzzing in his brain.

It wasn't until Gandalf the Grey showed up at his door that Bilbo's otherwise boring life took an unexpected turn. He became the fourteenth member of a band, made up mostly of dwarves, to help reclaim their homes. They had lost it to a dragon a long time ago, and a prophecy had told them it was time to take back what was rightfully theirs. So Bilbo became their "burglar" and went off on an adventure (much to the other hobbits' disapproval. They clucked their tongues and told their children, "See, those with Tookish blood are not respectable hobbits, so don't get too close to them").

Fate had finally pushed the (formerly) merry little band of fourteen to the front secret entrance of the Lonely Mountain, where the terrible Smaug lay within, guarding the hoard of gold and jewels fiercely. When the last red ray of sunlight hit the blank face of rock, the key hole suddenly appeared, and Thorin, the king of the dwarves, scrambled to put a key inside. The stone door gave way to a tunnel that led into darkness.

Of course, it was agreed that the burglar would be the first one to venture into that giant maw of black, to prove his worth as a burglar and bring back something from the giant piles of treasure that lay below. Knees knocking together and trembling like a leaf, Bilbo Baggins managed to bring the dwarves a cup from their stolen treasure. They were happy, but that joy was short-lived when the dragon could be heard from below, rumbling and thrashing around with rage over his stolen object. The dwarves and hobbit took refuge in a tunnel, quaking with fear for their own fates, Bifur, Bofur, and their poor ponies. When the next day came, Bilbo decided to go down to the dragon's cavern once more with his ring to try to find the dragon's weakness.

_The sun was shining when he started, but it was as dark as night in the tunnel. The light from the door, almost closed, soon faded as he went down. So silent was his going that smoke on a gentle wind could hardly have surpassed it, and he was inclined to feel a bit proud of himself as he drew near the lower door. There was only the very faintest glow to be seen. _

_ "Old Smaug is weary and asleep," he thought. "He can't see me and he won't hear me. Cheer up Bilbo!" He had forgotten or had never heard about dragons' sense of smell. It is also an awkward fact that they keep half an eye open watching while they sleep, if they are suspicious. _

_ Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance! Hurriedly Bilbo stepped back and blessed the luck of the ring. Then Smaug spoke._

_ "Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare!"_

That familiar, smooth baritone voice sent a barrage of images into Bilbo's mind. The familiar purple shirt, cupid-bow lips, long cloak-jacket. Bilbo doubled over in the darkness, trying to adjust to this flow of pictures. His head buzzed and throbbed slightly with…protest? Everything felt unnatural, like he was going against some unknown force. However, through it all, one word came to mind.

"Sherlock?"

The dragon's fiery gold eyes snapped open. After a moment's hesitation, he rumbled softly, "John?"

Everything suddenly clicked together in Bilbo, now John's, head. "I-I thought you were dead!" His voice cracked with emotion. He took a deep breath, ignoring that strange pulling and pushing sensation that tried to control his thoughts, speech, and actions. "You fell. I saw you fall!"

The dragon sighed, evidently also struggling with the same sensations. "I faked it. Oh, John, I wish I could tell you why, but now is not the right time." Smaug, now Sherlock, closed his eyes. He focused on an image of himself in his head, and with all the cells in his body screaming in protest, he morphed. He became a vaguely Sherlock-looking humanoid, with wings sprouting from his back and horns peeping out of his curly black locks. However, his eyes were still fiery-gold and reptilian, not at all like those cold, blue, and calculating eyes John was familiar with. Sherlock winced as his temples began to throb. He whispered softly, "Where are you, John?"

John removed his ring and stepped forward into the large cavern. It felt like there were strings tied onto his limbs that were trying to pull him back, back into the tunnel. His eyes were drawn towards the figure on the pile of gold, which had been forgotten a long time ago despite it being the entire purpose of Bilbo's adventure. He gazed with awe and shock at his flat mate, who he had seen with his own eyes committing suicide. Swallowing a large lump in his throat, he gave a quick nod. "Okay, I'll wait. But first of all, what are we doing here?" He was also starting to feel a pulsing headache.

Sherlock sighed, running his hands through his raven-black curls. "I don't know for sure, but my theory is that we're somehow in an alternate universe. You remember that book by J. R. R Tolkien, right? The Hobbit."

"You actually remember a book? A fantasy novel?"

"Oh shut up, the novel was the only good one I read when I was a child. Anyways, I believe we have been transported into this world for some very strange reason, while we are living our other lives back in 2013 London or wherever on Earth. The headaches we are both experiencing right now are most likely the result of deviating from the book's storyline."

"Wait…so, I'm going to live as a hobbit and you as Smaug, until the story is over? But, you're going to die! And what happens when the story ends?"

Sherlock hesitated, which was so very unlike him. His wings stretched out a bit, then furled up again. "I can only hypothesize that when the story ends here, our full consciousness will go back to 2013.''

John couldn't speak; his mind was in turmoil. Ignoring the protest in his bones, he stepped forward to where his best friend, his savior from darkness, stood. He looked down at his large hobbit feet and willed the tears not to form; they spilled over anyway. He steeled himself and spoke quietly. "I'm going to have to see you die again. It's…too much to go through, you know. Back in London it has already been two years since the Fall…it's been fifty years here in Middle Earth, and then I'll have to wait until I die to go back to you..." His voice cracked and he could no longer continue. Sherlock closed the distance between them, knelt down (John was now very short), and wrapped him in a gentle, warm hug, his wings moving to surround both of them. John was startled by the action.

"Don't say anything." Was that…embarrassment in Sherlock's voice? Nah, John just had to be imagining things. But for a guy who hated sentiment…However, any further thoughts were driven away by the pulsing pain in their heads, like some force was hitting their heads with a hammer every second. Something was trying to pull them away from each other, set them back to their respective places in the story. Both fought valiantly, trying to stay in the warmth and comfort of each other's embrace.

"I miss you."

"…I miss you as well." Sherlock hugged John for a little while longer, and then drew back slightly, wincing. "It seems as if it is time for the story to continue." Indeed, the pain in their heads was getting unbearable, and the pulling on their limbs was getting stronger than ever before. The dragon-human gently wiped away the hobbit's tears.

John leaned up on his tip-toes and gently pressed his lips against Sherlock's lips in a fleeting, chaste kiss. "I love—I'll be waiting," he whispered, against the violent screaming of every single one of their cells, screaming that they had gone too far away from the storyline.

Sherlock brushed his cupid's bow lips against John's brow. "Yes."

And they let go.

Immediately, they were sent back to their respective places; the hobbit in the tunnel, the dragon on the gold. The humanoid figure shifted back into the shape of a magnificent dragon, and the plot of the hobbit's story resumed.

_"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare!"_

_ But Bilbo was not quite so unlearned in dragon-lore as all that, and if Smaug hoped to get him to come nearer so easily he was disappointed…_

When the news came that Smaug had been shot down from the sky with an arrow, the John inside Bilbo only allowed himself one tear, which was quickly wiped away before anyone else could see. Then, he let himself go in the flow of fate on Middle Earth.

Bilbo Baggins was expected to live a very long life, over 131 years. John knew; he had read the book and the famous trilogy that followed it. Every day he thought how lucky Sherlock was to die early; he didn't have to wait through eighty years of conscious thought in a place where he didn't want to be. Of course, Bilbo was happy enough, but not John. Soon, he lost track over the years as he adopted Frodo Baggins, dealt with that cursed ring, traveled the lands of Middle Earth and beyond, and wrote a memoir of his adventures. When he lay on his death bed, supposedly, his last words were, "My dear Sherlock, I am coming now."

John woke up from his fantastical dream. It had felt so long; he felt so aged, so tired. He sighed and ran his hand through his sandy, slightly graying hair. How long would he have to wait in this world, London 2013 C.E., to see his beloved Sherlock once more?

One year later, John Watson returned to 221B Baker Street from work and found a certain tall, purple-shirted, black-haired, icy-blue-eyed consulting detective, best friend, and _soul mate_ lounging on the couch.


End file.
